Mike

A month ago, I got a job at Barnes & Noble as a book wench. I don't know what my official title is, but at $8.50 an hour, I can get fairly inventive. I am new to the city, having just moved here from spending over a year traveling, and I've got all kinds of work experience: TEFL, administrative, backcountry trails maintenance, high-yield bond analyst...just to name a few. Basically, I'll work in any job that interests me or that pays very well; most of the jobs I land, however, don't pay me well at all because the employer can get away with it. No actual college degree means that I get shafted a lot in the piggy bank. Poor piggy. Nevermind the fact that I've over 200 hours of college credit, that higher education to me is merely a learning tool. Some employers are fine with that - they interview me and like what they see and pay me a competitive wage and I work there until I grow tired of the idiots around me or have enough fall back money to go unemployed for a few months or have enough saved up to travel. Some employers aren't like that.
Anyway, what I don't tell the bosses of most places where I work is that their silly little job is just a means to an end for me. There is no way that I plan on making a career out of anthing but writing. Of course, one must work to put food in one's belly, so one must be forced to find ridiculous jobs, such as working at this bookstore, Barnes & Noble.
I turned down a job that pays twice as much to work at this bookstore. I've worked at bookstores before, and I like interacting with people who like to read and write. But let me tell you! I'm sure a lot of you have had to work in retail and deal with management hierarchy and all the pesky dramas that go on behind the scenes. How much longer must I deal with some of the most incompetent people?! Oh, some of them are actual free-thinking human beings with their own agendas, but the "lifers"...
So a week ago, one of the managers at the store asked if I could come in this weekend from 11pm - 7am and help him and a few other people move some books around in the store. Tonight being the night that I would go in. I said sure why not. I could use the extra money. The week passed and tonight I walked the two miles to the bookstore and showed up at 10:55. I received strange looks. The manager on duty wondered if I wanted to pick up my paycheck. Of course, he talked to me as one talks to a small child or a deaf-mute chihuahua. Loud and simple words. I asked, "where the hell is everyone who's supposed to be moving books, douchebag," but in words that were negotiable and easy to understand. He gets this look on his face, half-empathy, half-uncaring. "You weren't called?" he asks. And then he proceeds to tell me how they cancelled it at the last minute, how the corporate office didn't approve of the "man hours" and how everyone involved (being four people) was supposed to be called. Of course I never received a phone call. So, I turned around and walked home. Parting with the bookstore, its big neon sign in the background, I grumbled, "fuck it, I'm making cookies," as if in sudden revelation of the situations of my life.
And there's the story. I can only wonder how long it'll be until my next story sells, until I convince this agent or that publisher to push my next novel or novella, until I can make a living off of what I write and wave this silly little retail world goodbye.
Oh, and yes, I made cookies.

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- Mike

Malone

You're like a sober Bukowski. Factotom. There's even a movie version with Matt Dillon that's really good.

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There Is A Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed

moderan

Good luck to you, Mike. I've lived most of my life like that. It's why I drove a cab, I had more freedom to go for extended leaves of absence and would be taken back, no questions asked. What kinda cookies?

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lilacstarflower

cookies are the answer, especially if they're chocolate one I find.

But, yeah, I can completely identify with how crappy working in retail can be. Management have no consideration for their employees at all.

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tepelus

It's even worse working in a hotel.

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Foxee

One of the best jobs I ever had was a second shift technical position where I color-separated artwork and ran a machine that made film negatives that flexible printing plates were made from. There was nobody else on my shift that I had to interact with...just the computer and the machine (which was intractable...I spent just about as much time inside it ripping out jammed film or adjusting chemicals as I did running film). Talk about peaceful.

Unfortunately, all the jobs prior to that and the job that I was yanked out of that job for all involved people. I've worked in minimum wage jobs up to fairly nice office jobs and people never changed. Drama, hissy fits, fault-finding, lack of communication, it's a wonder anything gets accomplished! (And executives are just as bad if not worse than the rank and file)

The nice thing about taking the small jobs to supplement a writing income (which you sound like you're doing well at) is that you'll never leave one of these retail positions weeping over your crushed career.

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By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. ~Mark Twain

KangTheMad

We will leave your sexual preferences out of this please.

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Ana Kata

What kind of cookies did you make?

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Mike

Oh yes. I made two dozen cookies last night. They were chocolate chip and they were delicious. Along with those cookies, I drank about a liter of cheap chardonnay and wrote five hours into the night. Of course, upon waking, I had a cotton-like headache and it being Sunday, all of the kids from the all of the apartments nearby just had to converge in the grassy field a few meters behind my window and proceed to yell at each other loud enough to wake Jesus.
I'll have to look into Factotom, Malone. I briefly remember it showing in theaters, but I'm not a big movie-goer.
Foxee, the best job I've had yet was working on the trail maintenance crew. It was six months in the mountains of north california, living in a tent, being supplied by a string of mules every few weeks. There were twelve of us working extremely hard, moving 500lb rocks, swinging sledgehammers, digging grub, sawing downed trees - it was the most grueling job I've had, but the most rewarding. I was out there with nature, I bathed in a freshwater lake at the end of the day, I went hiking on weekends, and I didn't have to worry about all those little things one seems to worry about when surrounded by hundreds of people.
Kang, smoke crack on your own time.

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- Mike

Foxee

You know, Mike, I think if more Pennsylvanian guys knew that a job like that existed they'd have more volunteers than spaces to fill. Sounds like a terrific job and a good memory.

Mmmm...warm choco chip cookies. My beverage of choice with that would be whole raw milk with exactly one ice cube in it. Yummmy. Sounds like a very therapeutic evening as you did it, though. I'm envious!

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By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. ~Mark Twain

Mike

Whole raw milk? I don't encounter many people who drink it, as it's pretty hard to get if you don't own a cow or know someone who does. As a vegetarian, I don't drink milk much. Actually, I don't drink it at all. Nor soymilk or ricemilk or watered-down snot. But, I was out in Hawaii a few months back working on an organic farm and this 62-year-old hippie convinced me to eat some yogurt made from the raw milk of his brown swiss. Best yogurt I've ever eaten! I drank a glass or two of raw milk, too, but usually I'd just take the yogurt and throw it in with my salad or oats or spaghetti.

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- Mike

Foxee

It is harder and harder to get...but I have sources. I find the store-bought stuff to taste too much like plastic.

I've flirted with the idea of becoming a vegetarian but as of yet just not serious about it at all.

Yogurt on spaghetti?

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By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. ~Mark Twain

Mike

I became a vegetarian because of a bet I made about three years back. This woman I knew was a vegan/raw-foodist and she smoked cigarettes. I pointed out the apparent paradox with how she treated her lungs like a stepchild and the rest of her body like a supposed shrine. She pointed out that I ate meat and stank. Repartee, fair enough. So we made a bet that I'd stop eating meat if she stopped smoking. Easy for me, I was only eating chicken and fish anyway, with maybe four meals a month consisting of red meat. She grasped the short end of the stick, considering the addictiveness of nicotine. She lasted two weeks, which was admirable I guess. I never stopped. Maybe I wanted to rub it in that I won the bet, or maybe I found that I didn't stink so much, or maybe I thought it was healthier not eating dead animals. Whatever the case, I became more and more conscious of what I've been putting in my body. I'm especially conscious when it involves chocolate chip cookies.

And yes, yogurt in speghetti makes that red sauce all creamy and delicious. It's practically a stock for most nearby, middle, far, and really-far eastern sauce recipes.

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- Mike

Foxee

Now that is interesting. I'm going to try the yogurt/spaghetti thing out of curiosity.

When my mom had thyroid cancer she began a vegan diet (It makes the body alkaline rather than acidic...cancer thrives in the acidic environment) which was really tough as she'd grown up in a farming family and meat was a proper part of a meal. Her doc (who has been a vegan for a long, long time) always asks her suspiciously if she's been eating dead animals again. (sometimes she caves and eats things she shouldn't)

I toy with the idea. I know there are health benefits but it's a commitment. Maybe I need to go part-time vegetarian or something.

That's pretty funny that she had all the nutritional stuff down but smoked. Nicotine's a real pain to kick from what I've seen, though. You're right, you had the easier task.

EDIT: And it's impossible not to be aware of chocolate chip cookies!

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By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. ~Mark Twain

Mike

An easy way to alkalize (word?) your blood is to eat vinegar. Apple-cider vinegar is the best, but it tastes the worst, in my opinion. But i throw in a tablespoon with salads or stirfries to get that good stuff in there. I think that a lot of people get cancer because they're trashing their system with acidic foods. I've read articles of people reversing their ailments just by eating fresh organic fruits and veggies and not stuffing themselves silly with sugar and starch. (Unless it's chocolate chip cookies; slow painful death is an easy trade for cookieness)

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- Mike